Hirst’s Shark
In the swing between life and death in arts, we may want to tilt away from vacuous statements on death that involve an ironic reinscription the artist’s right to life and knowledge.
Kandinsky and Possibility
Children ask a lot of questions. Adults give a lot of answers. At times, these answers restrict possibility. Composition VII represents a project that prioritizes imagination, creativity, and openness. The painting asks us: “why can’t we?”
“Duel of the Fates:” J.M.W. Turner and the Storm
J.M.W. Turner’s Snow Storm: Steamboat off a Habor’s Mouth displays a battle between elements: fire and ice. The spiraling, harsh, and violent brushstrokes enclose upon a lone steamboat, struggling to stay afloat. By attacking the canvas and refusing to define his objects, Turner conjures chaos—the imperceptibility of the snow storm. The dominant palette of grays…
“I Like Trains:” Tracking the Locomotive Through Modern Art
My tracing of the train from the 19th to the 21st centuries interrogates the use of locomotives in art and how they reflect and interact with the historical climates of their artists. Tracking the temporality of the train displays an arc of modernity: from fascination, to struggle, to disdain. If modernity has offered us nothing…
“Liberty and Death:” The Danger and Ignorance of the Kansas City COVID-19 Protest
“Liberty and Death” was the first opinion piece I have ever written with the intent of publication. I completed it around Mid-May with the guidance of my instructor, Craig A. Ford Jr., who taught the Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Religion Hybrid Learning Consortium course at The Barstow School.
I had aspirations of submitting it to…
Terry Evans: the Anti-Futurist
The Martinez Family stands at the receiving end of the masculinizing disruption of mother Earth. The power in Evans’ image comes from its vivid portrait of care, love, and family; not triumph in and of itself. Evans emphasizes seeing and documentation, forcing the audience to reconcile the human impact of industrialization with its economic benefits,…
Theorizing Domestinormativity in Captain Marvel: Abolition, Motherhood, and Terrorism
I conceptualize domestinormativity as championing traditional monogamous relationships and nuclear families as normalized or preferred over other modes of existence to stratify the acceptability of certain bodies, relationships, or kinships. Captain Marvel does not have a lack of “seats at the table;” it has an issue with domesticizing and diluting its characters instead of activating…
Androgynous Transgression
One should not dismiss the visibility created by artists like Jaden Smith and Young Thug. However, we should still take critical standpoints on identity politics to improve the tactics of resistance against gendered norms and expectations.
Miles Luce 